Glory To Women
by FeanorusRex
Summary: "This is what being a women is really about: standing in a yelling crowd, in the face of guns, throwing rubble because you would not fucking take this injustice any longer. This is what the Eighth of March should be about, she thinks, not flowers, and,cards, and an advertisement on the metro hawking discount liposuction to women for the holiday."


It is early March, the eighth, to be precise. Ludmilla, Luda, does not like March. She does not like what she thinks of as the middle months, March, November, July. March has always seemed mushy to her with no exciting events to prop it up. Today is International Women's Day, but this is not exciting to her. She is a women, and congratulations on that? Most people don't even call it International Women's Day here, it is just referred to by the date: "S vosmym marta!" the cards say, wishing you a happy eighth of March. Even the congratulations of the holiday itself do not mention women. They are, like in so many other things, implied only.

Luda is old, sixty seven, but not so old as to have been alive when the holiday began, but her grandmother was, and had told Luda her recollections of what had happened on March Eighth, 1917. It had taken place in Petrograd, now Petersburg, where Luda had lived until her mother had divorced her father and taken her daughter back to Kiev Ukraine where she has lived ever since. On March 8th, 1917, crowds of women had filled the town, on strike from their factory jobs, protesting for bread and peace. No more war, Tsar, and more food. "It was very much like other protests, but the voices leading it were women," said her grandmother. It had not been the first Women's Day in the world, nor the first in Russia, but it had been memorable as the Tsar abdicated seven days later, and his family, including wife and four daughters were later killed brutally, but no one mentioned those women's rights, and the protestors got their right to vote.

While the holiday is now internationally celebrated, its meaning has changed, at least here and in Russia, from a day meant to celebrate women who refused to fall quietly in line, to a day meant to celebrate women who do.

In November of 2013, a revolution had broken out here, in Kiev, not stopping until February of 2014. It had begun with vast numbers of students- revolutions so often seemed to, didn't they ever go to school?- demonstrating in support of Ukraine joining the European Union. Luda had watched them; the scene reminded her of Les Mis, and even more so when the police attacked protesters several days later, and the civilians fought back with impromptu barricades.

Luda was caught up in one clash as she went quickly home, with a load of groceries. It was dangerous to be out, and food prices were higher, but she had resolved to stock up, go home and wait it out. A young women, young looking to Luda, stood next to a pile of paving rubble, broken from a previous attack maybe. She was wearing a bike helmet, the only head protection that many could find, and handing out bits of pavement to the group, to throw at the police. Luda got one too, roughly shoved into her hands, because apparently those fighting the soldiers would take anyone with arms. Even then Luda was in no real danger, for she was an old women and she had a chance to slip away unnoticed. But before doing so, she hurled her brick at the mass of approaching black armored bodies. She didn't know much about the European Union, but the police had been attacking innocents.

This is what being a women is really about: standing in a yelling crowd, in the face of guns, throwing rubble because you would not fucking take this injustice any longer. This is what the Eighth of March should be about, she thinks, not flowers, and,cards, and an advertisement on the metro hawking discount liposuction to women for the holiday.

When Luda expresses such sentiments to the young women at the medical clinic at which she works, with the, 'fucking,' taken out, because they are so shockingly innocent, they laugh nervously and call her a feminist. Luda knows the term, it's English, simply transliterated into Cyrillic, no more than that. The word remains a borrowed one, only floating on the top of their country's consciousness, never penetrating. Her young coworkers are all so dumb, and they infuriate her. During the war, a year before her birth, girls their age were in the army, just like men. In their old photos, they have curled hair, and smiles, and body counts in three digits. Luda shares a name with one such women, Ludmilla Pavlichenko, a Ukrainian sniper with three hundred and nine confirmed kills, more people than Luda has ever met.

And now people say that women shouldn't even be able to drive long distance trains underground because they can't handle the strain.

Today she has the day off of work, but goes out anyway to mail a letter. It's only to her bank; she never married, is an only child, and her parents are dead. On the street, Luda passes the place where the women handed her the rock to throw. The road's been fixed now, badly, with the tar only smoothed over the hole, its color contrasting with the faded pavement around it. There are still signs of the revolution, now four years later: scant flowers and wreaths to mark the spots where people were beaten to death, crucifixes and holy cards because they look nice, and everyone wants to be Orthodox after a tragedy. It was four years ago, and now there's a museum of corruption in the former president's house, a new leader, new problems.

 _"Slava Ukraine,"_ Glory to Ukraine, is still seen in graffiti, as is, _"Slava geroi,"_ Glory to the heroes," and the final response _"Smet nashem vragam,"_ Death to our enemies. Luda herself yelled the first one as she threw her missile, but in the chaos no one heard her, and she picked up her groceries and went home, not knowing if it had struck. Still it is a neat slogan. _"Slava zhenshchinam,"_ Glory to women. That should be the new phrase of today, on the cards with the image of an upraised fist, yellow and blue.

Later, after the president stepped down, a documentary came out, about Maidan, as the international community called it, although Maidan square was only the place where the protests began. Luda didn't watch most of it- it was very violent, with bloody cellphone footage interspersed with interviews of protestors- but at the end, Luda saw the women again, talking about how happy she was that they had won. Luda has forgotten her name, but a subtitle billed her as the leader of the Women's Barricade Defense Squad. Luda was glad that women had fought too, for most of the footage in the documentary had been of women and children shoved to the center of protective circles. Children, yes, but men were cut down by metal batons as easily as women were. Though it was nice to see men caring about violence against women, but a shame that it took widespread military attacks against innocent unarmed people to bring it out.

Luda wonders how the barricade defense women is spending her Women's Day. Not getting fat sucked out of her, surely. _"S vosmym marta,"_ says the man at the post office, taking Luda's letter.

 _"Slava Ukraine,"_ she replies.

AN: Everything I have described historically happened: Maidan/EuroMaidan, the 1917 protest (There were other women's days before that), the documentary (Winter on Fire, it's on Nexflix and Youtube go watch it), the glory to Ukraine/ glory to the heroes/glory to ukraine/death to our enemies chant, even the amazing woman from the Woman's Barricade Defense Squadron, (when I saw her I was like, "YYYYYYYYYYEAAAAHHHHHHHH! Why is she only at the end? Can I get uuuughhhh more about this WOMEN'S BARRICADE DEFENSE SQUADRON?!")


End file.
